easuring, mixing, rolling, and
baking--until news came at last that concerned herself--gossip of the
Burgemans, father and son.

The butler and the parlor maid were cleaning the silver in the
pantry--and the slide was raised. As transmitters of gossip they were
more than usually concerned, for had not the butler at one time
served in the house of Burgeman, and the maid dusted next door?
Therefore every item of news was well ripened before it dropped from
either tongue, and Patsy gathered them in with eager ears.

The master of Quality House happened to be a director of that bank on
which the Burgeman check of ten thousand had been drawn. It had been
the largest check drawn to cash presented at the bank; and the teller
had confessed to the directors that he would never have paid over the
money to any one except the old man's son. In fact, he had been so
much concerned over it afterward that he had called up the Burgeman
office, and had been much relieved to have the assurance of the
secretary that the check was certified and perfectly correct. Not a
second thought would have been given to the matter had not the
secretary's resignation been made public the next day--the day Billy
Burgeman disappeared.

Patsy's ears fairly bristled with interest. "That's news, if it is
gossip. Where is the secretary now? And which of them has the ten
thousand?"

The director had touched on the subject of the check the next day
when business had demanded his presence at the Burgeman home. The
result had been distinctly baffling. Not that the director could put
his finger on any one suspicious point in the behavior of Burgeman,
senior; but it left him with the distinct impression that the father
was shielding the son.

"Aye, that's what Billy said his father would do--shield him out of
pride." Patsy dusted the flour from her arms and stood motionless,
thinking.

Burgeman, senior, had offered only one remark to the director, given
cynically with a nervous jerking of the shoulders and twitching of
the hands: "He was needing pocket-money, a small sum to keep him in
shoe-laces and collar-buttons, I dare say. That's the way rich men's
sons keep their fathers' incomes from getting too cumbersome."

Burgeman, senior, had been ill then--confined to his room; but the
next day his condition had become alarming. He was now dying at his
home in Arden and his son could not be found. These last two
statements were not merely gossip, but facts.